in 2005 and has developed into one of the most popular sharing platforms online, with more than 1 billion unique visitors to the site each month and approximately 72 hours of video being uploaded to the site every minute.

YouTube had more than 1 trillion views in 2011, and as I and any other person with homework/assignments/work can tell you, it can certainly prove helpful when you’re [rp

As YouTube grew, there was an emergence of the “YouTuber” or “YouTube celebrity” – people posting tutorials, vlogs, skits, original music and covers (Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube, remember?) and building up an online following thanks to the ease of uploading and sharing videos.

In late 2012, Benjamin Cook launched his online documentary series Becoming YouTube, which incorporated fantasy and sketch comedy with interviews from notable YouTube personalities including Charlie McDonnell, Alex Day and author John Green.

The series has so far explored what it means to be popular on YouTube, the pros and cons of the online sharing platform, the phenomenon of Nerdfighteria and a whole bunch of other stuff.

It really opened up my eyes to a lot of things on YouTube I wasn’t previously aware of and was truly enlightening as to what inspires and drives content creation online, so

YouTube is, like much of the internet, slowly becoming more and more prevalent in our lives.

Teachers are using it in the classroom, others use it to communicate with family members and some are actually making a pretty decent living from sitting in front of a camera and telling stories about their lives.

Also, cats all over the world have become the subject of much humour and fascination for the human population, but I’ll have more on that for you next week.

Thanks to YouTube, many of my friends got to school on time with a correctly tied tie.

Thanks to YouTube, we have joyful things like Sophia Grace and Rosie (depending on what you consider joyful, of course). Thanks to YouTube, all those terrible music videos from the 1980s and 1990s just never go away.

However, the emergence of YouTube celebrities has also been met with some apprehension.

On the internet, and especially on YouTube, you don’t have to have any qualifications other than the ability to record and upload videos, and in some instances this can mean poorly edited content, video disasters or the promotion/sharing of somewhat controversial opinions.

And then there’s YouTube comments, which are a whole other kettle of fish.

(I’d share mine but it changes at least weekly, if not daily. That forty five seconds of Justin Bieber blow-drying his hair was great though, I must say. My favourite right now might be this one, I think.)

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